Sunday, January 22, 2006

Ready...set...go!

Roe v. Wade is 33 years old today…only a month to the day older than this AngryBlackBitch. A bitch has always lived in an America where reproductive freedom was a constitutionally protected right. And a bitch has always lived in an America where those same rights have been under attack.

33 years of choice.

33 years of debate.

33 years empowered with an education about my body, my rights, my options and my responsibilities.

33 years of Roe.

Within my lifetime a bitch has been grateful for the protection of choice…that broad protective quilt that encompasses far more than what anti-choice activists would like us to believe.

Oh yes…this bitch has been blessed by choice.

When a bitch rolled over and felt a lump in my abdomen a few years back…this bitch had choices.

When a bitch desperately ran out to the local Planned Parenthood office to seek medical advice within hours of feeling that lump…a bitch had choices.

When my ass received efficient medical advice and care…when they told me that it was most likely fibroids…when a bitch was given so many options that my head was spinning…oh yeah, this bitch felt the power of choice.

And when a bitch sat down for my first consultation with my surgeon…when she asked me…fucking asked me…whether my ass planned to have children…what my fucking intentions for my motherfucking body where…this bitch experienced choice in action.

A bitch was able to make medical decisions regarding my reproductive future with my doctor. Wow! And the heavens didn’t fall. The oceans didn’t part and frogs didn’t rain out over the land like water.

This bitch knows that what was so simple for me would have been revolutionary before.

And when a bitch counted down from 100 in that operating room and slipped into dreamland it was with the knowledge that my doctor was making decisions with my medical health in mind…not the government, not the President and not some sanctified asshole pontificating from a pulpit.

My body, my doctor…my motherfucking choice.

There is a war underway. A war that is being fought in our schools, pharmacies and doctor’s offices. Women are being denied reproductive health education, prescriptions are not being filled and doctors are being told what to do or not do…and we need to ask why and who benefits from this. Not me and not you…so who?

Who benefits from young women with four children before they reach the age of 21? Who benefits from young men and women not knowing how babies are conceived, how disease gets spread and how they can be empowered through planned parenthood as an applied action? Who benefits from the rise in STD’s among women of color? Who benefits from women not knowing that they can prevent a pregnancy after rape, not being told that they have choices after they have been assaulted?

Some motherfucker is pleased by this bullshit and it sure as hell isn’t me.

Do you understand that your right to make decisions is under attack…that choice encompasses abortion rights…

and…

so…

much…

more…?

Are you with me?

Or are you so blessed by freedom that you can’t work up the fucking passion to defend it?

The revolution has come. The war is already underway and it is beyond time for Generation pro-choice to stand up and defend this shit!

21 comments:

I'm with you, too. It's always somewhat uncomfortable to be a man in the abortion debate, but hasn't stopped those who want to chip away at Roe. I believe that there should be few, if any, restrictions on abortion. Forbidden abortion in a civilized society is ... well, uncivilized.

I was a friend of the late Garrett Hardin, a biologist who, in 1966, was the first credentialled authority brave enough to stick his neck out and advocate legalized (and universally available) abortion. It was a rough road leading up to the passage of Roe v. Wade. Although both Dr. Hardin was, and I am, lifelong (Caucasian) Republicans, I am SOLIDLY in your camp on this issue. Furthermore, I am a regular reader of Angry Black Bitch, and enjoy your zany, petulant tongue.

Hi ABB! Loved your post. I participated, because I found out about Blog for Choice day on your website. Thanks for that. My husband also blogged on it...and we discovered that we don't believe exactly the same thing, and of course we can talk about it like civilized people. What a concept.

I am with you. I think what gets everyone in such an uproar is that they fail to realize that being pro choice is not the same as being pro abortion. I am pro choice which means that I believe that each woman knows what is right for her and her life.Also if you are pro choice what is you stand on child support? For me it is simple you can't be pro choice and pro child support. That is just being to one sided.

Oooh girl. You know you make me wet when you talk about a revolution! I just wish the current revolution wasn't a religious one. I wish that those who were vocal in the public and political arenas were people who THOUGHT. Not people who had all of their thinking done for them (a.k.a. religious right). I mean, how easy would life be if all of your questions were answered with such confidence that all other answers seemed wrong? How easy would it be to be told what to do and think and say. Hmmm, scary shit!

Anyway, I'm very glad that you are the unapologetic anarchafeminist you are (whether you know it or not). I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

So, lady, what are we gonna do for this shit? Are you calling your community to action??? hmmm?? hehehe.

Amen, ABB. I've said this before, and I'll say it again...you are the most articulite individual I have ever run across, and it is always a pleasure to read your insights. You need to get yourself involved in the government....lord help them should they stand in your way! Where do I send the smarties?!?

I find too often that the people who so staunchly and self-righteously oppose reproductive freedom are the same ones who strike budgets for education, childcare, healthcare and social programs, WHILE complaining about "baby machines" who "take advantage of the system".

Thank you for this post... as an extremely liberal white semi-bitch who happens to be in love with a "moderate" (conservative) Catholic man, I find myself embroiled in the pro-life/pro-choice debate at least once a week.

Unlike some other issues (the death penalty, tax cuts, the war in Iraq) on which I've seen people change their opinions, the reproductive-freedom debate seems (at least to me) to be something on which most people will never budge.

And while I can certainly respect a difference in opinion--it's what makes the world go 'round--the hypocrisy (as you and others have stated) of wanting to force women to have children they cannot support, and to then refuse to support them through governmental means, is particularly infuriating.

However, I give the Catholics props for at least being consistently pro-life and opposing the death penalty. Many of those who fight to save someone else's unwanted fetus fight just as hard to kill a living, breathing, thinking, AWARE, human being.

I guess we will have the same rights as "bitches" if we don't stand up and fight for them. Animals have no choice in deciding wheather they want to give birth or not. I guess the religious, backward freaks (plenty in the government) in this country want to go back in time and treat us like property/animals like they do in the middle east. Maybe they want to stone us, as well. Amazing. I can't even begin to tell you how right you are. People are lazy. I hope they realize your message and how important it is to stand up and be a part of the fight for our rights. Get involved, people. Spread the word! This is scary what's happening. I don't want to live in the dark ages. This is America. Nobody has the right to my body. Let those people get busy with the orphans and millions of unwanted children out there. I would rather die then have somebody RAPE my mind, my body and the choice about the rest of my life. Billions of dollars are spent on bullshit, why don't they spend more money on creating better birthcontrol if they don't like abortion. I want to puke. Thank you.

Couldn't agree more.I am 25- I don't know what it's like to live in a world where white male republicans control my body, and I sure as hell don't want to. My rights are non-negotiable.

It sickens me to think of being launched back in time as a woman. It is absolutely infuriating- I think we forget too often how fragile our rights are. Hypothetical people getting more rights than women!?! Unacceptable.